Kavi: A Poet in Your Pocket that Listens to Your Thoughts and Whatnot!

Authors

Tharindu Kaluarachchi, Augmented Human Lab, University of AucklandFollow
Cooray Sankha, Augmented Human Lab, Department of Information Systems & Analytics, National University of SingaporeFollow
Elliott Wen, Augmented Human Lab, University of AucklandFollow
Vanessa Tang, Augmented Human Lab, University of AucklandFollow
Thi Mai Huong Nguyen, Augmented Human Lab, Department of Information Systems & Analytics, National University of SingaporeFollow
Phoebe Chua, Augmented Human Lab, Department of Information Systems & Analytics, National University of SingaporeFollow
Suranga Nanayakkara, Augmented Human Lab, Department of Information Systems & Analytics, National University of SingaporeFollow

Abstract

Talking about experiences with a person or a machine has been shown to improve emotional well-being and mitigate loneliness. Our work is inspired by prior work that has shown how poems can be developed into meaningful interactions and how poetic conversations can support emotional well-being. In this paper we report development and evaluation of a mobile & social voice-based chatbot named Kavi that talks in poetic style. Kavi’s back-bone is a generative AI model and the front-end is a web-interface that runs on most mobile or desktop devices. We trained Kavi with poem datasets instead of conventional conversational datasets. This provides Kavi with a unique poetic language style and a different dialogue style in comparison to many existing chatbots. With Kavi, we investigate 1) if Kavi can have meaningful conversations with people and 2) if varying the relevancy of the poem responses affects the interactions.

Recommended Citation

Kaluarachchi, Tharindu; Sankha, Cooray; Wen, Elliott; Tang, Vanessa; Nguyen, Thi Mai Huong; Chua, Phoebe; and Nanayakkara, Suranga, "Kavi: A Poet in Your Pocket that Listens to Your Thoughts and Whatnot!" (2022). SIGHCI 2022 Proceedings. 23.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/sighci2022/23